International Influencer - Whole-Life Millionaire Expert - Rock Thomas😎 | IMOTW

Come from a bit of a different background. So my words, I'm. I'm gifted, guided, grateful, powerful, passionate, playful, sexy, sensual, sensitive and blessed. I grew up with a father, unlike your father, that was almost never around. And you might have seen that from my Goal Cast video. And often we end up like our parents or the opposite to our parents. So I made a point of it to be around my children at all cost. When I was very young, my brother called me Pizza face because I had a lot of acne. And I repeated those words to myself every day when I got up and looked in the mirror. And I would look at myself and I'd say, oh my God, there's another pimple. You're so ugly and nobody's going to want to be around you. And I would make it really worse than it was with one suggestion from somebody that I wanted love from My.

Name is ABHI Arya, Father of two girls, six dogs, husband to a superwoman, a streetcar racer turned hotelier, now social media marketer and founder of Internet Vogels. So it's a short description that tells and a short mini story. It helps a lot of, you know, I see this on the Internet and some of these videos went to different people and we were just a short hero introduction was allowed. People said, you know what, I understand who you are in this short network and all of that. So if we were to ask you and you had to introduce yourself to someone, how would you introduce, how would you go about seeing your hero introduction?

Well, I come from a bit of a different background. So my words, I'm gifted, guided, grateful, powerful, passionate, playful, sexy, sensual, sensitive and blessed. And the reason I choose those is because I wasn't necessarily all of them, but they epitomize what I want to remind myself to move toward. So if you see behind me, I have the I am movement. I believe that the words that follow I am follow you. So I am gifted to me as I am gifted with an elite athletic body with the ability to connect and communicate and help other people. So each one of those words is like the tip of an iceberg that represents something to me of my character, of how I. How I operate at my highest self. But if I was to answer your question directly, I would say that, first of all, I'm a father, I'm a great son, I'm a serial entrepreneur. And I was born to serve. And to serve for me is to help utilize the pain I went through, to become purposeful in helping other people recognize that their pain can become their purpose as well, so I think I'm very insightful on recognizing people's potential. So few people actually have somebody walk up to them and go, I see you. And it's so vital for us as humans to be seen. To be seen for who we are, who we want to be, instead of playing small. So I think one of my gifts is to see the greatness in other people.

Nice. Lovely, lovely. Thank you very much. I love the. When you said, whatever you said, everything that follows I am is what will.

Be the words that follow I am, follow you. If you say, I am, I am stupid, I am dumb, I am useless, I am shy.

You.

You behave that way. So I teach people to be the director and producer and writer of your own movie. So you could say, like, my father is Dutch, German, very serious. And that's why I have the word playful, because most of my life I wasn't playful. So I remind myself to be playful by saying, I am playful. And sometimes we're given a label. When I was very young, my brother called me pizza face because I had a lot of acne. And I repeated those words to myself every day when I got up and looked in the mirror. And I would look at myself and I'd say, oh, my God, there's another pimple. You're so ugly, and nobody's going to want to be around you. And I would make it really worse than it was with one suggestion from somebody that I wanted love from. And I carried that for 15 years until I met somebody who taught me that labels are just suggestions. And your job is to really discover who you are, Meditate, think, contemplate. And I thought, you know, I could change that. And with his help, we took somebody, and this was just the one example. We took Clint Eastwood as an idol of mine. He asked me, how do you see Clint Eastwood? And I go, well, he's not like Tom Cruise, pretty boy. He's more ruggedly handsome, right? And when I said the words ruggedly handsome, my face kind of lit up. And he goes, say that again. And I go, ruggedly handsome. He goes, why don't you replace pizza face with ruggedly handsome? And because our brains are like software. Every time that you say something to yourself, it's who you become. Aristotle said. Aristotle said that what you say repeatedly, you become. So I changed pizza face every morning I got up and I said, ruggedly handsome. And over time, my confidence went up.

It looked nice, and then I just.

Replaced it with anything I wanted to create. I grew up on a farm, and I wanted to Become more successful. I went from working hard to working smart, from being a laborer to being an entrepreneur, from trading time for money, from trading time for leverage. And that's how I was able to transition to have 35 streams of income. I'm dyslexic and not the greatest speller, but I've written three books. I didn't let that label hold me back. I didn't become a best writing author. I became a best selling author.

Nice. What should I tell myself I need to lose weight? Should I tell myself I'm not hungry? I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry.

So that's interesting. I worked with a gentleman who was 65 years old. He was overweight and dieting his whole life. He was about 265 pounds, and he's a Canadian in Montreal. And he went out skating with his grandson, and they went around the rink twice, and then he had to sit down because he was out of breath. And he goes to his grandson, he goes, isn't it fun skating with grandpa? And the little boy looked up at him and he goes, yeah, it's kind of fun, but it'd be a lot more fun if you didn't have to sit down after two laps and be out of breath. And he looked at him, and it was like a shot in his heart. So he went to Google and he researched something like top coach, and somehow came across me, hired me, and I simply changed his identity from overweight and dieting to athlete. And then I asked him, how would an athlete behave? And he goes, well, an athlete would have a specific eating regime. There's things they wouldn't eat. They would exercise every day, they would make better choices, they would study nutrition, they would look at ways that serve their body, and they would have a vision for what they wanted to create. So we put a vision of his grandson and him on a board skating. And long story short, in nine months, he lost 65 pounds. He went back to his weight that he hadn't been to for 42 years because we changed his identity, which makes it easier to change the behavior, because otherwise you're always working against yourself. And you have to employ willpower, which becomes exhausting over time because you feel like you're depriving yourself. So you choose the vision of you at your optimal self. And there's a process of what are the consequences if you don't do it. Like, my father died of cancer at the age of 62. So I work out every day. I'm a vegan. I make Choices that reflect that. If I don't do that, I'll go down the same path of my father. So I leverage the pain, that possibility by bringing it forward and making it close and real every day.

Over to you.

Okay, so my first question is, I was watching a video on, I think it was Goldcast, and you were explaining your story, which it was amazing. I loved it. So, you know, you were talking about how you reached the bottom. And there's so many times where, I mean, viewers who are watching this, they're gonna feel like that too, right? So how do you. What was that one mental strategy that you use that got you to a place where you felt like you were done? To a place where you wanted to create something and you wanted to achieve?

You know, I feel like I had, I think there you think you've hit rock bottom in your life and then you have new rock bottoms later in your life. But there's a part of me that leverages death. And maybe it doesn't work for everybody, but for me, I go, one day I'm going to be dead and this body will not be there. My soul may live on, but the way I am today will not be there. And when I do that, I have this sense of, well, what's the worst thing that could happen, right? If I'm afraid to fail in a business or I'm afraid to, you know, ask a question in front of a group, or if I was embarrassed somewhere, I think one day I'm going to be dead. And it seems to give me this desire to take action in the moment, ask the question, run a little bit harder, to knock on another door, to pick up the phone and call somebody in my business, whatever the case may be. And I think a lot of people, the opposite of that to answer your question, is people don't have a sense of urgency around the moment. They're like, you know what? I'll do it tomorrow. It'll get easier tomorrow. Like if we look at this coronavirus thing, I almost embarrassed to say, I am very excited. I am really excited because it is during times like this that the opportunity for growth and for self reflection every moment. And the greatest amount of wealth transfers during this period of time. So I surround myself with people smarter than me. Three days ago, I bought a stock called Carnival. You heard of the Carnival cruises?

Yes.

So they're stocked, you know, all the big cruises where you go around the world on a big cruise ship.

Are they down 50%?

So they're down about 90%. They were at $55. They went all the way down to 8. And I bought some at 12, 9 and 8. And then yesterday they announced Saudi Arabia, some company from Saudi Arabia invested many billions of dollars in them and their stock has shot up 50% since then.

Wow.

So while other people are freaked out about whether they, you know, they got a sniffle or this or that, I think that people with a higher emotional iq, right, emotions go up, intelligence goes down. They're looking for the opportunities. And so this is a period of excitement for me. It's a period where I go, hey, I'm so blessed that I take care of my body and my health and I'm strong and fit. Even if I get the coronavirus, I feel like I will handle it. So I'm not living in fear, I'm not creating acid in my body. So long answer your question is basically when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Nothing is meaning, but the meaning you give it. Bring it on life, bring it on, make it a mental gymnastic for me that I get to grow every day. So I kind of attack life.

Nice. Nothing meaning till you give it meaning you give. You, you give it your own label and you have the power to do that.

Exactly, yes.

Great question, Aviana.

So my first question is, how do you balance out family time with your work time or business time?

So I grew up with a father, unlike your father, that was almost never around. And you might have seen that from my Goal cast video. And often we end up like our parents or the opposite to our parents. So I made a point of it to be around my children at all costs. I coached my children's hockey, their little league. I sold one of my businesses in 2006, retired for two years and spent most of my time with my son in his golf school. Spent a lot of time with my children and they've worked with me, they still work with me. So I spend a lot of time with my kids and I'm very grateful for that. But I am also a little bit like my dad, a bit of a workaholic. I love to build businesses. I'm also fortunate for me, I don't need to sleep that much. So sometimes what I do is I will do work while the family's sleeping so that when they get up, I can spend time with them. So I'll typically be up at 4 o' clock in the morning and I'll do a bunch of stuff. And when the family would get up around 6:30 or 7, I already felt like I was able to do things and then I was able to be present. So for me it's a priority.

Priority.

And you've just got to put it into your schedule. Every year at Christmas, we would take two weeks with the family, we go away and we would do things together. And we have spring break and we have time in the summer. So again, I guess the answer to the question is be incredibly focused and productive when I'm at work. And I'll tell you one quick little story. I remember once I was a real estate agent and I went on an appointment with a nice little old lady, but she was lonely and she just wanted me to come over and tell her the value of her home and have a cup of tea and just connect because she was alone. And I spent two and a half hours there. At the end she goes, no, I'll never sell my house. I just wanted to know the price. And I came home and the kids were in bed. My kids were like 6, 7 and 9. And I remember being really upset that I could have spent that evening at home with my kids. And so what I do in a situation like that is for a moment I allowed myself to get incredibly upset, to change my perspective. And I said, never again will I go on an appointment without qualifying that appointment to be sure that at least that person might sell their property. And I don't waste my time. Shame on me for not doing my job. Rock, you need to get better to serve your family because that's two and a half hours you could have been with your family. So it's things like that. Life will happen, but you can learn from it and then commit and not make stories and excuses like, sorry, Daddy's got to work. That's crap. Daddy's committed to the family and I will find a way. So that's my answer to you.

Okay, so you know, both your questions are about your, your eating habits, your diet habits, and your finding time with the family. Everything comes from a. And the fact that you said that you allowed yourself to feel bad for a few, for a few minutes before so that you don't repeat that you know, the same behavior. That, does that mean that you are incredibly self aware? And if you are, is there, is there an exercise that you do to be able to see yourself as another person?

Well, you know, it's like anything, it's a process. My goal, I think one of the purposes of life is to become as enlightened and as aware as possible, but it's continual work. About three years ago, I went to Chennai, India and spent a week there at a meditation retreat and I had several breakthroughs. I've been to Peru and I've gone to different places to work with shamans and different things. But I think that's a really important characteristic, is to become self, aware, self conscious. Because if you're not aware, you can't change anything. But certainly I'm not nearly as aware or enlightened as I could be, but now I do. I just finished 75 days in a row of yoga and it's all part of that process of becoming more conscious and a little less western minded of go, go, go.

Got it, got it. So what about my next question? What about, you know, you do webinars, do you use social media? How do you, you've got a message, you've had, you know, you've had breakthroughs, you've clearly been able to help a lot of people now comes in social media a few years ago. And how have you leveraged social media and how can other coaches who are, you know, following in your footsteps, people who follow you, your fans, your, you know, the coaching community who are looking at this video and saying, you know what, I want to be a coach or I am a coach and I want to leverage social media. What would be the few lessons you could give to them or how you have used social media to amplify your message?

Well, Goalcast was one of the things that helped accelerate that. It was supposed to be seen by 2 million people and it's now 100 million people that have seen it. Yeah, 65,000 downloads in my book and blah, blah, blah. I think that, you know, to your point, storytelling is the way that we connect. And so if you're gonna use social media every, you know, everybody seems to be on social media now. Everybody's at home now, so everybody's, you know, jumping on and doing lives and stuff like that. I think that there's a lot of people, unfortunately, that go on that, that don't really have the credibility and they want to be, you know, the next YouTube expert and so on and so forth. But you know, if I'm going to get advice on a divorce from a 23 year old kid that's never been married, I don't know if that's going to work so well. So I think pain, you know, leads to passion until the vision takes over.

So.

So if you've got something that really bothers you, like what bothers me is watching people have a job they don't like and live their life in quiet desperation, that really hurts me If I'm on the road and I see people sitting in their car on their way to work, and they look depressed and they look sad and they look. I want to help them. So my mission is to help people live fulfilling, meaningful lives. Often one of the ways to do that is to help them find ways to have passive income. And then when they've got money coming in, they can start to have a little bit more time to figure things out, who they are, what they want to do and how they want to live their life. But so many people, including myself, younger, as you're scrambling, you're working hard, you're paying the bills, then you got young children, you're changing diapers, you barely see your spouse, and then you're all over again. So I want to help those people. So social media is a platform to find your audience and brand, but it's a minefield. Also, I have a buddy of mine spent $228,000 on Facebook ads last year, and he made $19,000.

Sorry, what was that again?

He spent $228,000 on Facebook Ads marketing his real estate flipping business. And from all of it, he made $19,000. He lost 100, $209,000. So, you know, it's not that easy. You need to really get on your message and then have a platform and decide whether it's going to be YouTube or TikTok or whatever it is. And then you got to get really good at it, and it changes all the time, so you got to be willing to invest in it. So for me, it's a necessary evil. I don't actually like it that much.

Got it. But then, but then Gold Cast was also successful because it was. It was. It was on social media and it allowed it to spread. You had a beautiful message. But then social media and then a platform called Goldcast came and then allowed you. I mean, I believe that, you know, stars align, there's always the right timing for everything. But also, the platform was made available. So would you, you know, all the up and coming coaches who are watching this, would you say that they should go to these kind of platforms and talk or just talk about their story online and some platform like this will one day find them, or in the interim, just use Facebook ads to be able to take your message. You have a short speech about who you are and how you help people take it and run Facebook ads to your target audience so that they see your message and when they come to you.

I wouldn't run Facebook ads until you have some momentum. Because it's like the conversion rate on a Facebook ad could be a dollar a lead, and then you need to nurture that lead and create a relationship. We could talk for five or 10 minutes, but are you going to buy my $7,000 coaching program? Probably not. So you need to nurture that relationship. I have a one year entrepreneurship program where I teach people how to get out of the rat race and become entrepreneurs. I've helped 55 people become whole life millionaires where they don't give up their health or the relationships, but they become financially free.

Whole life. I like that. Okay.

Yeah. And I've been doing that for eight years. And even myself, I've very, very limited advertising on Facebook because by the time we get the lead and nurture it and move it down, it's very costly. So if you have a huge budget, I mean, I have a pretty, pretty good budget, but I choose to do it organically because it's. It's about the relationship you create with people. And I'm. My target is about probably 3% of the population. Not everybody wants to be a millionaire.

Right, Right.

So people say they do, but most people aren't willing to pay the price.

100%. I agree with that. 100%. Yeah. Okay.

Sorry to interrupt. Aviana has to go do her online school.

She has a meeting with her online school. Sure. Go for it, Wilfrid. Thank you.

Nice to meet you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Namaste.

I can go a little bit.

Okay, your turn.

Okay. I have about five more minutes because my class starts really soon.

Sorry.

But so my. I started vlogging on Instagram and my message is to always love yourself. And it's mainly because I'm targeting teenagers, you know, because, like, I see so many people like you. I know, like what you said. I am. And then that builds you up because I've used that a lot personally and it's really helped me. So for all the teenagers watching this, what is your advice towards them? You know, when they feel hopeless or when they're going through high school and it feels like everyone else is better than them, what is your advice towards them?

Well, comparing yourself to other people never works. So you're either going to feel better or worse. And all of that's ego and it's not spiritual at all. But we do it because a survival mechanism says, you know, and men will compare each themselves to men because their conversation is, can I take him?

Right.

And if I can't, then I'm maybe threatened. And I need to protect myself now by the way as a man or as young teenager, it's, can I take him physically first, or can I take him with my words? Or can I take him with my coolness? Or can I take him with being better at math or whatever it is? Can I find a way to win? Men need a way to win and feel strong, and if they can't, they'll bully and beat the other one down, same way. My brother called me pizza face, so comparing never works. But it's necessary to know where you stand to stay safe for young women. There. Can I out attract her now? These are not conscious thoughts, but they're like, oh, look at that bitch. She thinks she's so pretty and hot. And then women will get together and they'll chip away at the one that is deemed to be the one that will attract the mate that they ultimately. Because it's all very caveman, like, right? So it's really important that first of all, like you said, love yourself, appreciate who you are, get comfortable with. I wish I knew this earlier with. With being vulnerable. Like, if I walked up to somebody in school when I was younger and I said, you know what? I feel so uncomfortable. I got another zit on my face. I feel like I'm the ugliest person in school. I bet you somebody would have turned to me and go, oh, my God, I got one right here. You can't even see. I put some makeup on it. I feel terrible, too. And you connect through vulnerability, but we don't do it because most of us don't make it safe for each other to be vulnerable. If we could do that. If you children could do that on school and be vulnerable with each other. What we all want is to connect, belong, and matter. And when we don't think that we can connect, belong, and matter, we go more on the offensive and we start to tear each other down. So, I don't know. It's very difficult with social media for you young kids. I think it's probably more difficult than when your father and I kind of went through that stage. So I don't have all the answers. But I would say this to the teenagers is do your best to be strong, fully vulnerable. Like, you could go to somebody and say, hey, you know what? I'm wearing this hair bandana today because I was too lazy to wash my hair. And I'm actually having bedhead today. And I, you know, I'm. I just, you know, do I look.

Okay and own it?

Yeah, own it. And then somebody will go, oh, my God, you look so good like that. I like it with your bandana on you go. Really? Yeah. You have such a beautiful shape of head. And there's this connection instead of we all are fake and trying to hide and try to be, you know.

I tried to dance many years ago, and I had a dance guru who was one of India's celebrity gurus and all of that. We're very happy. And I stood, and he said one thing. He said that he trains all the Bollywood stars. He said one thing. He said, tall people are, you know, I'm like 6ft 3 and I'm a large man. He said, why don't you show your brilliance? He said, I've seen every tall person when I set them up with all the dancers who are maybe not as tall and petite. He said, you try to fit in and then you lose your own, you know, your own, you know, your own magic. So with you saying that, I just went back 10 years or 20 years when he said that, that we sort of shrink to fit in.

Yes.

Should, you know, expand to shine.

A lot of tall people have neck problems because they're looking down and you're trying to get closer to people versus owning their stature.

Right.

I love that. Amazing. Thank you so much. I have to go do my school, but it was really nice talking to you.

It's really nice talking to you and some really poignant questions you girls asked. So, you know, it's really cool to see you on this journey. God bless.

Raya Raque is very busy person, and he saw our email and he said, I love the way you sent the introduction. And I'll say yes right away. This was when we sent him the email. So you must really profusely thank him for being.

Thank you so much.

All right, Keep up the great work.

I've got two more questions, if that's okay.

Yes.

So you know what? So like I said, we run a community now. I ran an agency for the longest time. My hotel is all of that. I did a lot of stuff for. Because I want to make my dad proud. My dad is 71. We still talk about work every single day. I want to make my mom. I just. Everything. Everything. But I always wanted to be a teacher, sharer and all of that. And I thought it was not for me. Anyways, two years back, I sort of geared up and I said, I'll spend more time. And I built a community now with 55,000 people strong. And I'm helping entrepreneurs become, you know, find a business online and become digital entrepreneurs. And to be able to work from anywhere because I'm now spending more time than ever with my kids. Only because I am doing a webinar five times a week. I can do my business from my webinars, teaching, coaching, training and all that. So I found my. I'm finding my happiness finally. Now I'm not upset, I was not sad. I had a beautiful. I have a beautiful family. Everything is fine. But I, you know, like, it sounds too cliche, but when you lift somebody up, you feel good. So I did. I'm not getting that feeling. I get invited to stages and all of those things happen all over the country and all of that. I used to stammer and I couldn't. My favorite word is car because I wanted to be a streetcar racer. Everything in my mind is car. Car. But I used to call it tar. I couldn't even call it car. I used to call it tar because I could speak very well. My mom used to take me for special classes and she said they're special. And I thought they were special because that was my time with my mom, away from my siblings, you know, my mom only to myself. And this was when I was in grade 6, 7, 8. Now I'm 43 years old and last year I was named as one of the top, you know, whatever, higher selling speakers and all of that. I took the book to my mom and she's here somewhere. I took it to her and she was the happiest person and you know, because she kept pushing, she kept pushing. So that family story, we've been able to build it. And so why I'm telling you all of this is that, you know, God has been kind in the last one, one and a half years, we built a community of 55,000 people. And I've told all of them, I said, with my daughters, I'm building a school, I'm building an online thing, podcast, all of that. And I'll bring all of you and your kids into the community as well. And I'll introduce you to people like Rob Thomas and Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone. And so you can see from them on what you can learn because a lot of people want. So just for our community, you know, I would love to hear a special message from you. There are people who are entrepreneurs, there are students, they're digital marketers. Lots of them look up to you. Because we did a speed work, you know, my girls and I, we send mails to the speakers and then we do a survey with our team and with our audience. And they say yes, we would love it. So a lot of people are very excited, you know, to see when this interview comes out. So just a message from your, from you. Especially in these trying times when people are actually shivering, they don't know what's going to happen to their business. So over to you.

Yeah, there's, there's so many beautiful things. So first of all, I think that it takes a lot of courage to be entrepreneurial because every day you have to recreate yourself, especially in this very, very fast paced, changing world. So I salute people who are going down that path. The second thing I'll say is that it's really about probably two things, which is what served me. I grew up on a farm, so I was blessed with a good work ethic. And I'm not afraid to roll up my sleeves and to work diligently.

Is that what makes you wrong from the beginning? Is that the way you do? Okay.

And I'd say that if you couple that with a sense of passionate curiosity. I think Einstein said that knowledge is less important than imagination. Your ability to visualize, imagine, to dream, to think about, to be creative is actually a skill that's underused by a lot of North Americans anyway. And when you combine that passion and curiosity with the work ethic, great things come from it. You don't need to know how you're going to build that business yet. You need to know that you want to make a difference, that you're excited about something. I wrote three books and I didn't know at first that I was even capable of writing one. I've opened multiple companies that I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I just took the next step. I've learned how to play the drums and the piano later in my life by chipping away each day and just consistently having the long term vision. But I will say this is that 8 years ago I started a mastermind group, A tribe of healthy, wealthy, generous people that choose to lead epic lives. And don't apologize for being awesome. So the most important thing in your journey is to surround yourself with other people that are doing what you want to do, share your values and or around people who have already done what you want to do to do because you're going to learn from them. Things that are going to, that are going to shorten the time of the experience because experience is the longest teacher. So you want to be around other people that can, you can say, hey, you know what? I'm thinking of doing this online business. How does that look? And somebody who's done it already can give you feedback you may not like, may not be what you want to hear, but it's going to be accurate and helpful so that you don't have to, you know, learn from your own mistakes, but you can learn from, like Warren Buffett says, other people's mistakes.

Right?

So when I started my podcast, I hired a guy to coach me on how to do it. When I opened up my first business in real estate, I had multiple coaches. So it's really about surrounding yourself with great people, putting yourself into an ecosystem where I call what you. You can be supported at times, encouraged at times. And then when you start getting some results, you need to be challenged to not be complacent. So you can always raise your standards and move forward. And if you do it with a bunch of other people like yourself that are present, you're a fantastic listener. I can see it when you ask questions, you're present, you're paying attention. When you're around quality people like yourself, it's going to be easier and more fulfilling, right?